


elegy

by sunsiu



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Infidelity, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28233399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsiu/pseuds/sunsiu
Summary: “You can be king,” Fundy tells him. “The crown is right there for you to take. Why don’t you?”He doesn’t say,I’ve never known you to refuse control.“I don’t want to be king,” Dream returns easily.You’re in love with him. Fundy imagines how the castle’s silk sheets must feel under Dream’s skin, versus the cotton blanket in their house Fundy had stitched himself.That is why.Months after the war, Fundy still has so much left to lose.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Floris | Fundy, Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 230





	elegy

**Author's Note:**

> i started writing this before george got dethroned and dream said fwt wasn't canon in the smp dhmu 
> 
> also, since this is rpf, i feel the need to explain that this is set in the dream smp, completely based on their smp characters [not so much smp!george as he doesn’t really roleplay, but for ex: how dream portrays his character in the smp + fundy's videos (manipulative, power-hungry, a cheater) is obviously not how he is in real life.]

With his eyes closed, it’s easy for Fundy to find himself back in the middle of the carnage.

His chest drums at the memory of the debris cutting open his cheek, at the weary screams of his comrades mingling with the howls of the wither, at the cool gaze his father swept over him before giving up the presidency and blowing up the one place Fundy could claim as his.

Fundy’s breath stills at the echo of his lover’s laugh, ecstatic and horrifying, as they watched L’Manburg crumble together. His throat tightens around the impressions Dream’s lips had made, as he kissed away Fundy’s nightmares of the chaos Dream himself had orchestrated.

Fundy’s left hand flies to rest on his cheek instinctively. The metal ring cools his temple, grounding his senses before his memories swallow him whole. 

He exhales. Under his fingertips, the waxy blades of grass feel nothing like ashes. Lying in the meadows, not a single thing smells like soot.

A finger, strong and tender, lands gently in the middle of Fundy’s eyebrows. It rubs between them slowly, and Fundy lets the furrow smooth.

“Open your eyes.”

He opens his eyes. 

_Ah. Hello._

Fundy smiles, because he can’t help it, not when Dream does, too, his mask amusingly crooked so that it exposes the corner of his mouth. Dream is in his human form today, like he always is after spending a day at the castle. It’s not Fundy’s favorite, but Dream’s human smile, toothy and unguarded, makes it an embarrassingly close fight. With his head hanging, Dream lets the sunlight fall around him so Fundy lies in the shade.

Dream always finds him in the meadow.

“I was having a nightmare,” Fundy tells him, as Dream slowly lays beside him, gently guiding Fundy’s head to lay on his chest. Dream doesn’t have a heartbeat. Fundy finds the silence serene.

“You were awake,” Dream replies wryly, but he intertwines their fingers anyway.

Fundy melts into the touch. “My eyes were closed.”

“Ah,” Dream concedes, an ounce of mirth finding its way into his voice. “They were.” He’s looking straight at the sky. Fundy has to bury his head in the crook of Dream’s neck so the sunlight doesn’t blind him. 

_So many of my nightmares are about you_. 

Fundy ignores the thought, focusing instead on the scent Dream brings home from the castle, smooth and luxurious and as expected of royalty. His heart drops to his stomach.

“How is the king?” he asks, keeping his voice tentative.

Dream squirms slightly under his touch. Fundy hates that he notices, but he always does.

“His Majesty is the same as always,” Dream says, the edge to his tone sounding almost like a warning. 

Fundy looks up at him. He pretends that the edge isn’t sharp enough to hurt, but it sinks into his chest, slow and exhausting. “I still don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“Why George is king, and you are nothing.”

He’s playing with fire. Stoking Dream’s ego is as easy as routine. Putting out the flames makes Dream arrogant, cold, and every bit the demon they both know is still inside him somewhere.

“The king has no power,” Dream says, flatly.

“And yet,” Fundy whispers, “you are loyal to a fault.”

There is something about this meadow, about the warm soil and the sunflowers swaying in the breeze, that makes him lose his tongue. There’s something about laying in the grass, with the fiance he knows to be unfaithful, that makes him brave.

Dream turns his head to look at him, eyes searching. “It’s my duty.”

“You can be king,” Fundy tells him, almost pleading. “The crown is right there for you to take. Give the throne power again. Why don’t you?” 

He doesn’t say, _I’ve never known you to refuse control_.

“I don’t want to be king,” Dream returns easily.

 _You’re in love with him_. Fundy imagines how the castle’s silk sheets must feel under Dream’s skin, versus the cotton blanket in their house Fundy had stitched himself. _That is why._

“Ah,” Fundy exhales. The clog in his throat chokes him up. The weight of his realization crashes against barricades he didn’t know where there, and Fundy is at once overwhelmed with grief, for his father, for L’Manburg, for this love.

It’s liberating.

“Is everything alright?” Dream asks. He’s looking up at the sky again. Fundy searches his face and finds neither guilt nor innocence. Only bored, uninterested peace.

Fundy doesn’t realize their hands are already separated until much later, when the sun burns his ring into his stomach.

/////

The gazelle’s footsteps are stealthy and nimble, but it only takes the snap of a twig for Fundy to hone in on its location. He sprints to where his instincts take him and revels in how the wind whips through his fur, wild and exhilarating.

Fundy feels safest in the forest. At least animals have nothing to hide.

A sound shocks him to a halt. Something is thrashing in the water, a little to his east, where he remembers a gentle stream to be. The splash sounds too loud to be anything but a large fish — maybe cod or salmon. Fundy’s smile widens. Fish is the one wild animal he doesn’t feel too guilty about killing, and Dream… enjoys fish, or at least, as much as someone can when they don’t even need to eat.

He runs east, farther and farther away from the herd of gazelles. When he approaches the riverbank, he wants to laugh at the foolishness he’d given up an easy week’s worth of food for. He sinks his knees behind a berry bush, pressing his palm against his mouth to stifle the wry giggle that bubbles up from his throat, because _of course_.

It isn’t cod. Or salmon.

King George is not intimidating. He has pale skin, apple red cheeks, mismatched eyes, and a bright, wide smile that takes up his entire face. Fundy would tower over him if they stood face to face, and George would look up at him and raise a sly, teasing eyebrow. He’s disarming, Fundy thinks. Charming and attractive, exactly like a king should be.

But unlike most kings, he’s completely weak on his own. A king without will, without any power but his looks and status. Without his knights, George is vulnerable. Without Dream, George is unarmed.

Dream is not here.

George is here, wading through the water, trying — and failing quite astonishingly — to catch fish with his bare hands.

 _He’s so strange_ , Dream had said about him, right as Fundy’s head touched the pillow. The transparent marvel in Dream’s voice had kept Fundy up for hours.

The bow in his hands feels like it’s made of stone. 

He could shoot George right now.

Fundy is completely hidden behind the bushes, and no one would be able to catch him if he shifted into a fox, anyway. He could shoot George without even straining himself, straight through the heart. It would be easy. It would be quick.

Without thinking about it, he raises the bow. The head of the arrow slinks between the berries.

“George!”

Fundy lowers his weapon immediately, shame weighing down his limbs.

George turns. Dream is there, sweating and panting in his human form, looking like he’s halfway to strangling George with the fish he _still hasn’t caught_.

“That’s _Your Majesty_ to you,” George teases. His snicker makes him sound much younger than he is. “Help me find a fish for my house, Dream.”

“ _Your Majesty_ ,” Dream imitates, down to the accent, earning him another laugh. Fundy sucks in a breath at how every interaction between them feels like water running down a stream. “It’s all fun and games until someone tries to kill you, and then you call for me _again_ and I’m not there. Then you _actually_ die, and Sapnap -”

George interrupts him with a cackle, loud enough to alert the entire kingdom. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says through breaths and bursts of broken laughter, tumbling into the water with the grace of an elephant. “I just realized -”

And then Dream is laughing, too, and he looks so much younger, so much less terrifying, that Fundy feels like he’s looking at someone else. Dream looks free, and fond, and impossibly happy. “Oh my God, George.”

“Sapnap,” George manages to eke out. “Sapnap… _King_ S.. Sap-”

George doesn’t manage to finish his sentence before he doubles over, wiping tears across his cheek, giving up on the fish and just sitting cross-legged in the water. Dream is wheezing, his laugh coming in through staggered breaths, the kind of guffaw Fundy rarely gets out of him.

It feels like such a private, intimate scene Fundy has to witness. Watching them feels wrong, almost like Dream and George are characters in the backstage of a play, sharing inside jokes the audience isn’t supposed to understand until much later in the production. 

Dream stops laughing eventually, but George is still riding out the rest of his chuckles, burying his face in his hands. From this distance, Fundy can see Dream dip his head closer, looking straight at George like he hung all the stars in the sky.

Fundy swallows.

“Hey,” Dream says, pulling George’s fingers from his face gently. “You’ll get a cold.”

The tips of George’s ears flush a furious scarlet. His laugh mellows down to uncertain, nervous breaths. “Get me a fish?” he asks, grabbing the hand Dream extends to help him stand.

Dream pretends to think about it, and in one swipe, snatches a cod from the water. 

George groans. “You’re so annoying.”

They don’t kiss. They don’t flirt, at least intentionally. They touch for a second, and it’s enough. Fundy is sure they aren’t having an affair, but he’s even more certain he doesn’t stand a chance.

The metal on his engagement ring stings every bit of skin it touches. Fundy reaches for it with his right hand, desperate for the relief it used to grant him without asking for anything in return.

The wind rustles the berry bush in front of him. Dream looks up, right at the leaves where Fundy is completely hidden, watching quiet affection simmer in the man he’s supposed to marry, and letting his own tired heartache cut through his ribcage.

/////

He’s never seen Dream quite like this: feral and sick and beyond comprehension.

“Where are you going?” Fundy is caught up in the turmoil, letting himself get swept away by the whirlwind Dream leaves as he rushes past Fundy and into the house. Fundy follows the staccato of Dream’s frenzied steps into the bedroom, and finds Dream pulling their wardrobe away from the wall. “Dream,” Fundy repeats, the name catching in his throat. “Where are you going?”

A netherite sword is exposed on the wall, glowing purple with prized enchantments Fundy knows took months to prepare. Dream grabs it without a hint of hesitation.

“Dream,” Fundy implores. “Tell me what happened.”

Dream doesn’t seem to hear him, or doesn’t find it necessary to answer while his heavy strides fade into the kitchen. His eyes pass over Fundy once, and Fundy chills at the sight of them — glazed over and completely blank, like they’re made of glass. Fundy tails after him anyway.

Hands shaking, Dream stuffs his pack with more golden apples than Fundy can count, missing the mouth of the bag twice before successfully cramming the first three. Dream opens another cupboard, feeling around aimlessly among the glass bottles of potions they have stashed.

“Let me,” Fundy interrupts, gently pushing Dream’s hand away. “You’ll end up poisoning us both.”

Dream blinks at him, startled, as if he’d forgotten Fundy was there. “Strength,” he requests, his voice small and frantic. “And invisibility.”

“You used up the last of the strength last month,” Fundy reminds him, placing a purple potion into the pack. He tries to recall what Dream had needed them for, and his mind fills in the blanks with withers and the pig that summoned them. Fundy knows to stamp the memories down when his eyes start to sting. “I can make another one for you.”

Dream shakes his head. “No time.” He takes the pack from Fundy and twists the mouth shut. His left hand is still trembling as it hovers over the cloth, and Dream locks his fingers together to keep both his hands restrained. He presses his hands against the countertop, letting his head hang low. So quietly, Fundy wouldn’t have heard it if he wasn’t listening, Dream whispers, “I can’t find George.”

Not the king. Not His Majesty. _George_ , free of all formality and inhibition, charged with barely-concealed longing. Saccharine when Dream’s mouth first rounds out the sound, and bitter when his lips close at the end of the syllable.

Fundy’s heart burrows into his stomach. Bile rises from the cavity in his chest. “Where are you going?” he asks again, but only because the silence might have forced his scream.

“I don’t know!” Dream cries out, rage bleeding out of every word. It doesn’t sound like a reply; it sounds like a penance. Fundy follows him out to the end of the meadow, where the flowers end and the evergreens begin. There, he finds Dream staring up at the trees — too tall to see the sky.

Dream whispers, more like a hiss, calling out to _something_. Warm, honey-infused light emanates from Dream’s feet and slivers up his limbs. His features slowly transform, shifting him into a form not even Fundy will be able to reach out to. 

Fundy always forgets how easy it is for Dream to let himself be possessed, at how hungry the demon always is for a host as powerful as Dream, at how hard Dream has to fight to keep the demon at bay. Calling out to the demon had always been a last resort — Dream’s survival was never a guarantee whenever he was possessed, and he’d always come back from it a memory or two lost.

If he lets Dream go now, and the demon consumes him, the last memory Fundy will have of him is Dream’s back to his, chasing after the one person he cannot bear to lose and leaving the one person who couldn’t bear to lose him.

He doesn’t know where the words come from. Perhaps something bitter had taken root when his heart had been carved out of his chest, growing slowly and silently without Fundy’s knowledge. Maybe Fundy had let it fester between each waking thought.

“Let them take him.”

The light stops around Dream’s feet. 

Slowly, Dream turns around to face him, for the first time since he’d rushed into the house. Fundy can see the knot between Dream’s eyebrows. His mask had fallen off somewhere between the house and their location, and Dream hadn’t even noticed.

“All the king’s power comes from you. Not even the rest of the knights. _You_ , and you’re risking everything you worked for… for _no one_.” Fundy’s breath catches. He digs crescents into his palms. “What would be so wrong,” he continues, “if we just let them take him?”

Fundy doesn’t want George to get hurt, not really. Not at all. George is kind beyond courtesy, albeit frustratingly dense. He indulges Fundy with chess once in a while when they find each other near the giant board. He gives Fundy extra leather when he needs it, free of charge or favor. If anyone asked him, Fundy would say the king is his friend.

But Dream is half of his heart, and if Fundy needs to burn bridges to keep him, then he’ll raze them all to the ground.

Dream still hasn’t answered him, looking back with an expression Fundy isn’t familiar with. There is a puddle in between them; the moon glimmers in the water. It must have rained, Fundy realizes, when he smells the forest: wet and humid and tense, and finds the grass around his toes saturated with dew drops.

When Fundy is not met with a response, he continues, encouraged by the knowledge that Dream has at least one ear open. “The king has no power. They’re bargaining with nothing.”

Dream just stares at him. His lips are sunk into a deep crescent. His eyebrows, usually delicate curves, are knitted tightly above his nose. Without his mask, Dream is terribly expressive. All his emotions on display on the dip of his mouth, in the corners of his eyes, in the way his lips move, forming words but not speaking. Anyone would understand why he wears the mask in the first place, if they saw him like this. Anyone would see how easy he really was to crack.

Fundy steps closer, cupping Dream’s cheek with his palm, his engagement ring pressing against Dream’s skin. Dream covers his hand with his own.

He brings his other hand to rest on Dream’s arm. He holds Dream’s eyes in his own, pleading in the calmest voice he can muster. “Come back to the house. They thought taking the king hostage would make the kingdom fold, and we both know they’re wrong. They won’t get anywhere, even if they have him.”

Dream pulls down Fundy’s hand from his cheek, and their fingers remain locked between them. Dream’s eyes sink into him, but they pass right through, as if Fundy isn’t even there. Fundy’s stomach tenses. Without thinking about it, he jerks his hand away.

Dream says it like a confession, wholly pure and excruciatingly honest, and Fundy knows, in that instant, that he’s lost.

“They’ll get to _me_.”

/////

He’d found the suit hidden in one of his father’s chests — the one right at the bottom, covered with so many cobwebs it was almost fastened to the floor. The suit itself is untouched save for the near-permanent creases from being folded for too long. An hour before his wedding, Fundy sees himself engulfed in a deep navy sea, reflected on the grimy mirror. The fabric falls past his shoulders, stopping a breath before his ring. His pants spill over his ankles and onto the dusty oak floor. 

A creak startles him. Then, the ghost does.

“Are you haunting me, Wilbur?”

The ghost has the same unkempt curls, the same sweater in the exact shade of mustard yellow his father had been so fond of when he’d been alive. In the mirror, it lurks just a few steps behind Fundy, pulling at a thread on the checkered tablecloth.

Fundy sees it in his sleep, sometimes, just after dozing off and right before wandering into a dream. He doesn’t remember the scenes he drifts in and out of, but he always remembers the ghost, staring across from him in a cavern covered completely in birch buttons. They’d never spoken, and Fundy has never seen the ghost beyond his dreams and memories, until today.

Wilbur is silent, but he is so much closer than he’s ever been, and Fundy can see him. Fundy can _smell_ him, under a blend of chamomile and smoke that he hopes will linger after he leaves. For all his grief, Fundy is glad that of all places and of all times, he’s here and now.

Does he approve? Fundy was going to marry the man who’d helped him betray his country, after all. They must have been friends, or at the very least, knew each other by name. Depending on where on the spectrum of relationships they’d landed, Wilbur could know more about Dream than he did about his own son.

Wilbur is barefoot. He doesn’t leave imprints in the dust, but Fundy is still struck by how peculiar it is. He thinks, _do ghosts need to wear shoes?_ and laughs so loudly to himself he’s convinced he’s drunk something he shouldn’t have. Strangely, he has more fond memories of this ghost than with his father. Maybe all the memories he has with Wilbur are tainted with his deceit.

Fundy closes his eyes. _Tell me, father, if I’m following my heart into madness._

“Happy day,” a voice says from behind him. When Fundy opens his eyes, George has replaced his father’s apparition in the mirror. Fundy turns to face him. George is smiling, his crown lopsided on his head and his glasses tucked in his shirt. Up close, Fundy can tell that his eyes are two different colors. He’d always been mesmerized by them. 

“I hope you don’t mind me intruding,” George continues, the edges of his eyes wrinkling at the edges. “I just wanted to congratulate you before everyone else did.”

“Never, Your Majesty,” Fundy responds. He bows, automatic. He doesn’t mean to be so rigid, but all his movements feel restrained. If he doesn’t keep his limbs controlled, he thinks they’ll start acting on their own volition. “It’s an honor.”

“Oh, God.” George crinkles his nose. “I’ll have you exiled if you ever call me that again.”

Large, booming laughter leaves his lungs, and it soothes his muscles instantly. It _is_ a happy day. “How are you feeling? Dream says you see more doctors than trees, lately, after what happened,” Fundy tells him, recalling the night a month ago, when Dream had staked down his own sanity to retrieve him. _They hadn’t fed him for days_ , Dream told him, while Fundy carded his fingers through his hair in the middle of the night. _If I’d been any second later, he might have been dead._

George had walked in with a limp, but for now, he is alive. 

_I’m marrying the man you love today._

“Feeling much better,” George responds. His smile grows kinder; the freckles right by his eyes are pulled taut. “You look nice.”

“Thank you.” Fundy regards him, at how George’s eyes dart to the rings on the table and flit back up when he realizes what they are, at how he shifts his feet awkwardly, at how his fingertips tug at air. Today, George will let go of the man he does not know he loves and he does not know loves him. Still, Fundy knows George’s smile — his happiness — to be true.

He winces at the sympathy that rises up from him and wills himself to remember: George is not his friend, even if he is, and Dream has been unfaithful with him, even though he hasn’t.

“George,” Fundy says. He returns George’s soft gaze with his own in hardened steel. “I don’t intend on giving him up.”

George exhales, his breath coming out in short, nervous chuckles. His cheeks burn bright red. “Are you practicing your wedding vows on me, Fundy?”

“Do you think I’m that cruel?”

“Dream is my knight.” George’s smile cools. His eyes betray no emotion, but the deepening flush down his neck is telltale. “His only oath to me is by duty.”

_You do not know the way he looks at you, stronger than any oath. The way you look at him, like you’d let your entire kingdom burn if it meant resurrecting him from the flames._

“ _God_ ,” Fundy chokes out through laughs he can’t tamper down; they tear through his chest like sobs. His cheeks hurt. The absurdity of the conversation, the situation, leaves him with a smile he can’t hold back. Happy day, happy day, happy day! “I feel selfish, keeping you two apart.”

“Dream is in love with you,” George argues, and even though Fundy believes George thinks he’s telling the truth, it still rings false. “He gathers flowers for you at the riverbank, every day.”

“He would tear down the universe for you,” Fundy counters immediately. _Absurd_. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s the same.”

“I swear to you,” George breathes. “We’ve never done anything. We would never do anything.”

Fundy nods. He’s still smiling. How much sweeter every stolen moment must have been, when they were forbidden. How much pain parting must have caused, every night when Dream had to come home to his fiance.

He makes out a glimpse of yellow by the door, out in the meadows, where the other wedding guests are starting to gather. The throng of people in different-colored suits and dresses move awkwardly around each other like ants breaking formation.

“Fundy,” George says, following his gaze. There is a sense of finality in the way George says his name, like he will never say it again. Like he’s surrendering. “You’re getting married today.”

His gaze catches on Wilbur, standing still in the center of the crowd. The ghost moves its lips, almost as if it’s trying to speak, but it’s too far away for Fundy to hear. He ignores it.

His eyes land on Dream, beautiful in his mother’s white dress. They lock eyes, as if Dream had sensed Fundy was looking for him, needed him. He smiles, toothy and unguarded, and Fundy melts.

 _Do without your mask today,_ Fundy had asked that morning. Dream had taken it off without hesitation.

“I am,” Fundy finally replies, a decision as much as it is a vow. He rubs his engagement ring, and lets the cool metal kiss the tips of his fingertips. “I am.”


End file.
